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zeno490
Junior Member
Canada
10 Posts |
 Posted - May 29 2017 : 09:36:14 AM
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This has been going on for a while now and is utterly annoying.
This issue has been reported many many years ago and continues to manifest itself.
Now reproduced every other day:
- Windows 10
- VS 2015
- VA 10.9.2107.0 built 2016.07.15
Starting VS from the start menu will very often fail to load the VA plugin. This can happen 2-3 times in a row, or 20+. It can happen at any time: after a fresh boot or after hours of usage. It happens very often when connecting to VPN with Pulse Secure but it happens even without messing with it.
More often then not the only way to get the plugin to load again if it fails after 10 tries, is to log out and log back in and retry.
No other VS plugin experiences this. They all load 100% of the time just fine aside for VA.
Has this been fixed in the last year or will it ever get fixed? Is there any log somewhere that can be used to debug this further? |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18750 Posts |
Posted - May 30 2017 : 05:52:19 AM
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| Are you getting any form of error message? Anything to tell you that VA is not loading, and perhaps offering a clue as to the reason VA is not loading? |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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zeno490
Junior Member
Canada
10 Posts |
Posted - May 30 2017 : 09:50:35 AM
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There is no error as far as I can tell. Is there more verbose logging that I could enable to help debug this?
Basically, when the plugin fails to load, the VA toolbar menu is present, but everything is greyed out. Even the about and other irrelevant entries.
Searching the forums, it appears this issue has been present for several years. It happens intermittently on my PC and my environment doesn't change aside from VPN connecting/deconnecting but I also get the issue even after a fresh boot without touching the VPN. It just makes it much more likely to reproduce. |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18750 Posts |
Posted - May 30 2017 : 12:08:45 PM
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It is almost as if VA is detecting that you are running it on more than one machine on the same network, with a single user license key, and disabling its self. But if this was happening then VA should be presenting you with a message box, explaining that this is what is happening.
How are you loading the IDE?
Are you logging into your machine as more than one user?
If you are logging into the machine, and loading the IDE as different users, how many of the users are Admin users,and how many are normal users?
When VA is in this disabled state, can you please go to:
IDE tools menu -> Extensions and Updates...
and see if VA is listed as Enabled or Disabled in the list of installed Extensions on your machine. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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sean
Whole Tomato Software
USA
2817 Posts |
Posted - May 30 2017 : 1:17:08 PM
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>This issue has been reported many many years ago and continues to manifest itself.
Do you have a case number for this?
>Searching the forums, it appears this issue has been present for several years.
Can you post the thread id?
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zeno490
Junior Member
Canada
10 Posts |
Posted - Jun 01 2017 : 11:01:47 AM
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Here are a few threads with similar issues:
From 2011: https://forums.wholetomato.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9994&SearchTerms=greyed,out
From 2010: https://forums.wholetomato.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=9845&SearchTerms=greyed,out (possibly not related, AV interference)
From 2015: https://forums.wholetomato.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12456&SearchTerms=menu,disabled (extension folder is clean on my side, only installed VA once, never updated)
From 2016: https://forums.wholetomato.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12526&SearchTerms=menu,disabled
From 2016: https://forums.wholetomato.com/forum/topic.asp?TOPIC_ID=12609&SearchTerms=menu,disabled
That last one looks like exactly what I describe, is unresolved in the thread, and is over a year old. Worth noting my license is old and dates from 2016 which is why I haven't upgraded yet.
I have not tried other versions of Visual Studio on this PC, but a year ago with VS2013 on a different PC with Windows 8.1 pro, I did not have this issue with the same build/license. |
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sean
Whole Tomato Software
USA
2817 Posts |
Posted - Jun 01 2017 : 12:22:54 PM
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9994 is working by design since holding the shift key down when starting VS disables plugins.
The user in 9845 wrote that the problem was caused by Microsoft Forefront.
The user in 12456 stated that the problem was fixed.
The symptoms in 12526 are different -- since he does have some commands that are enabled and you have reported that no commands are enabled.
Whatever the problem was for the user in 12609, it appears to have been resolved.
To answer one of your original questions "Has this been fixed in the last year or will it ever get fixed" -- no change has been made to VA for any of the threads you referenced.
Capturing a log of startup is the only way to proceed at this point. Logging will have to be enabled via the registry as described at:
https://support.wholetomato.com/default.asp?W305
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zeno490
Junior Member
Canada
10 Posts |
Posted - Jul 17 2017 : 11:10:44 AM
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Sorry for the slow reply, the issue seemingly went away since my last reply and only resurfaced today. It did pop up 2-3 weeks ago but after enabling logging, the issue went away.
Today however, I was able to capture a log. It shows nothing of value except for this snippet:
OnConnection {
no foc
OC1
OC3
LoadVADll {
GetRegValue {
} GetRegValue
ERROR: [998 0x3e6] failed to load 'c:\users\nfrechette\appdata\local\microsoft\visualstudio\14.0\extensions\vwzc3bxk.mtb\va_x.dll'
File appears to exist -- check for dll/pdb directory names in VS install dir.
} LoadVADll
Register events {
} Register events
} OnConnection
The DLL obviously exists and hasn't been modified since January when I installed it. |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18750 Posts |
Posted - Jul 17 2017 : 11:24:18 AM
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Can you please try downloading and running Process Monitor:
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-US/sysinternals/processmonitor.aspx
Once this starts happening regularly, load Process Monitor before loading the IDE, and set the Process Monitor filter to include the rule:
Process Name is devenv.exe then Include
I am mainly interested in any errors that might explain what is blocking VA from being loaded by the IDE. A first random guess is that some other process is somehow "locking" a file or registry key that VA is looking for, but I am not sure what or why this might be happening.
Are you working with different user profiles on your machine? VA is installed on a per user bases, as the path indicates.
Is it possible the IDE is being loaded under a different user sometimes?
Do you have:
IDE tools menu -> Options -> Extension Manager -> Load per user extensions when running as administrator
turned On or Off? |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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sean
Whole Tomato Software
USA
2817 Posts |
Posted - Jul 17 2017 : 11:42:56 AM
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The log message explains the va load failure. Look for directories whose name is a dll or pdb file name -- check the Visual Studio installation directory as well as the windows installation directory. Something -- either Visual Studio debugger, Windbg or cdb -- created those directories to store symbols instead of using whatever directory you have configured for symbol storage. The os loader gets hosed when trying to resolve dll dependencies when the name of a dll is found to match a directory in the path. Delete the directories and then the dll should load.
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sean
Whole Tomato Software
USA
2817 Posts |
Posted - Jul 17 2017 : 11:55:34 AM
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| Follow-up post: the previous reply may be completely off-base. I'll follow-up when I get in -- I think that the directory named same as dll is more like an access denied error (5). |
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sean
Whole Tomato Software
USA
2817 Posts |
Posted - Jul 17 2017 : 12:35:43 PM
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| Sorry for the false alarm. I've confirmed, the directory name interference with dll load usually results in error code 5 rather than 998. I will continue to investigate. |
Edited by - sean on Jul 17 2017 12:35:57 PM |
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sean
Whole Tomato Software
USA
2817 Posts |
Posted - Jul 17 2017 : 3:13:44 PM
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That the problem comes and goes makes it plausible that something in the environment is changing.
How do you normally start VS (taskbar, start window, command prompt, batch file, etc)?
Do you always start VS the same way?
https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/196069/prb-loadlibrary-api-fails-with-998-error-noaccess-error
998 is ERROR_NOACCESS which normally means access violation but let's go ahead and rule out the access denied (5) problem we have seen before when directories have the same name as dlls. Please check your VS installation directory for suspicious directory names. Look in:
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\IDE
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\Common7\Packages
C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio 14.0\VC\vcpackages
C:\Windows
C:\Windows\System32
If you see directories (not files) like kernel32.dll or ntdll.dll, delete them.
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zeno490
Junior Member
Canada
10 Posts |
Posted - Jul 18 2017 : 10:56:05 AM
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I checked and did not see any unusual directory names in those locations. I'll wait for the issue to reproduce and I'll check again then.
I do have per user extentions enabled in VS2015. I also have a single user on this desktop PC. The PC is fairly new, I built it from scratch in January along with a fresh install of Windows 10 (upgraded from Windows 8.1). Not a lot of things have been installed on it, only the bare minimum to get work done. (Visual studio, sdks, etc.) The only anti-virus I use is the default Windows Defender app.
It may be related to the VPN software Pulse Secure, I'm not sure. Aside from that, nothing comes to mind at the moment. I'm however fairly confident that the issue happens at times after a fresh cold boot when the VPN hasn't been used yet, although maybe not as often.
I'll wait for the issue to reproduce and give process monitor a try. Hopefully it sees something new.
I always start VS the same way, Windows keyboard key, type visual studio, hit enter. |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18750 Posts |
Posted - Jul 18 2017 : 2:22:42 PM
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| Just thinking about the VPN, is there any chance of VA seeing other machines also running VA with the same license key once the VPN is connected? This could result in VA disabling its self, but it should inform you that this is happening, so it doesn't really fit the pattern you are describing. I am just trying to think of any way that the VPN could be effecting things. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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zeno490
Junior Member
Canada
10 Posts |
Posted - Jul 18 2017 : 9:27:31 PM
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I just reproduced the issue again after a cold boot. Visual studio was among the first 3 apps I launched after the boot completed. I launched more or less at the same time VS, SourceTree, and Firefox. This is a common action after I boot for me. No VPN connection attempt was made or involved but the Pulse Secure app is running in the background, idle.
VS failed to load VA, and restarting VS 3 times showed again it was failing to load even after all other apps had finished loading. I downloaded process monitor, setup the filter, and launched again only to have the issue disappear... From time to time this behavior repeats, where VA will failed to load a number of times, and somehow manages to load after some N attempt. I have also observed the opposite, where VA will have loaded in a past VS instance (possibly still open and running), and a subsequent VS instance fails to load VA although the VPN may or may not have something to do with that behavior, I'm not 100% certain.
I'll keep an eye out and try again with process monitor the next time the issue pops up. |
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sean
Whole Tomato Software
USA
2817 Posts |
Posted - Jul 18 2017 : 9:33:14 PM
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If you have depends.exe, when it happens, fire up depends and drop va_x.dll into it to see if it reports anything worthwhile.
Do you use gflags?
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sean
Whole Tomato Software
USA
2817 Posts |
Posted - Jul 18 2017 : 9:52:07 PM
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If you have windbg, the next time the problem occurs, try starting VS under windbg and enable loader snaps via the command:
gflags -i devenv.exe +sls
Does it report anything helpful? |
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zeno490
Junior Member
Canada
10 Posts |
Posted - Jul 19 2017 : 10:11:37 AM
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I managed to reproduce the issue again this morning.
I opened visual studio and loaded up a C# solution (rare for me) and VA loaded fine. A few minutes later I opened up a second instance and VA failed to load. Subsequent launches of VS also failed to load VA.
I grabbed a capture with process monitor but I haven't seen anything unusual. You might have better luck. You can find the log here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1twXoODFKL7TUJWaDJjUS0wWE0
Worth noting that I have very few VS plugins aside from VA. I also use Entrian Search and another custom plugin. I'll try to remove the custom plugin and see if it helps but Entrian has been running fine and always loads without fail. |
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zeno490
Junior Member
Canada
10 Posts |
Posted - Jul 19 2017 : 10:30:39 AM
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I grabbed a depends log and you can find it here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1twXoODFKL7V3dENWE4S0t1ejQ
I started devenv.exe under windbg along with the gflags you mentioned.
windbg breaks a number of things, I did not see anything suspicious when it does. I did however confirm that va_x.dll seems to load as some point and appears in the modules list and later disappears from the module list.
The log also shows this which might be relevant:
3b84:1244 @ 608376375 - LdrpProcessWork - ERROR: Unable to load DLL: "OLEACC.dll", Parent Module: "c:\users\nfrechette\appdata\local\microsoft\visualstudio\14.0\extensions\vwzc3bxk.mtb\va_x.dll", Status: 0xc0000005
Full log of windbg here:
https://drive.google.com/open?id=0B1twXoODFKL7N1I1emx0dWdKMDA
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18750 Posts |
Posted - Jul 19 2017 : 3:20:37 PM
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I am not finding any clues in the Process Monitor log either. I tried filtering out everything that I felt I could ignore, but was not left with anything useful at the end.
As a quick sanity check, what is the file size of your file:
C:\Windows\SysWOW64\oleacc.dll
from the process monitor log this is the path and version of the dll that is found and opened successfully. On my windows 10 machine, where VA always loads happily, I have the size 331,776 and the version is listed as 7.2.15063.447 |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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zeno490
Junior Member
Canada
10 Posts |
Posted - Jul 19 2017 : 8:28:10 PM
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I have the size 325,120 bytes and version 7.2.14393.1378. It looks like possibly a bit older than yours?
As far as I know, my Win10 installation is fully up to date and so is Visual Studio 2015. I have no other VS versions installed and I use the Community edition.
I also have the latest windows sdk installed (I think). In any case, all of this was installed in January with the latest versions of everything I could find (except VA as I haven't renewed my license yet). |
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sean
Whole Tomato Software
USA
2817 Posts |
Posted - Jul 19 2017 : 9:40:42 PM
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It looks like in your environment, oleacc is only being loaded by va_x. In the environments I have checked, oleacc is loaded long before va_x is loaded. Since LoadLibrary is reporting 998 and since windbg reports an access violation shortly after modload of oleacc, we'll have to assume the load of va is failing due to oleacc av.
We don't have any explicit calls to the one export that depends.exe reports as an oleacc dependency (AccessibleObjectFromWindow), so we can try making the dll delay-loaded. If something we link with actually tries to use AccessibleObjectFromWindow and oleacc at that time fails to load, VS will crash -- but at least VA should load and we'll know for certain that the previous load failures were due to oleacc.
We'll have a test dll in a couple of days. |
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sean
Whole Tomato Software
USA
2817 Posts |
Posted - Sep 06 2017 : 3:07:53 PM
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| For anyone that stumbles upon this thread, an attempt to address this was made in build 2231 (case=109834). |
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zeno490
Junior Member
Canada
10 Posts |
Posted - Oct 19 2017 : 8:47:13 PM
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I can confirm that the issue has not reproduced with the latest build in several weeks now (~10).
Thanks! |
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feline
Whole Tomato Software
United Kingdom
18750 Posts |
Posted - Oct 20 2017 : 07:54:55 AM
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| Thank you for the update, hopefully this will stay fixed. But please do get back to us if this problem comes back again. |
zen is the art of being at one with the two'ness |
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Topic |
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Plugin load failure
